Considering that these programs were all founded by people who prospered under Batista, it’s not surprising that corruption is the rule rather than the exception.
If your goal is to restore corruption and klepto-capitalism to Cuba, it should be no surprise when the organization you found is corrupt and klepto-capitalist.
Our position towards Cuba has been as self-destructive as anything that I’ve seen in US history.
The vote was 275 votes to 256 with 10 abstentions.
Honestly, I think that the nuclear deal is a bad one, it provides civilian nuclear technology to India while its weapons program proceeds apace, but it puts me on the side of the the BJP,* which makes me feeling queasy, though their objection is a nationalist one, that there should be no limits on weapons building and testing, and mine is an anti-proliferation one, that we are rewarding a proliferator with the deal, and will inevitably supply technology for weapons development, simply to benefit the moribund US nuclear industry.
It still has to pass Congress, which is unlikely until after Bush leaves office, and a new administration may wish to tweak the deal.
US negotiators are a $1.4 billion cut, off of a out of a $48.2 billion dollar cap under the current agreement.
Honestly, it should be zero, at least on the world market, and then there’s the whole “patented species” crap that is used to shake down 3rd world farmers.
The New York Times buries the lede:
…..some lawyers and law professors are raising a related question: Will Mr. Bush grant pre-emptive pardons to officials involved in controversial counterterrorism programs?
Such a pardon would reduce the risk that a future administration might undertake a criminal investigation of operatives or policy makers involved in programs that administration lawyers have said were legal but that critics say violated laws regarding torture and surveillance.
Some legal analysts said Mr. Bush might be reluctant to issue such pardons because they could be construed as an implicit admission of guilt. But several members of the conservative legal community in Washington said in interviews that they hoped Mr. Bush would issue such pardons — whether or not anyone made a specific request for one. They said people who carried out the president’s orders should not be exposed even to the risk of an investigation and expensive legal bills.
“The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations,” said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. “If we don’t protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances.”
Bush does not pardon out of a compassion, he does not believe in that.
He will pardon for personal and political advantage.
Thus, I expect blanket pardons of his His Evil Minions™, because otherwise, Bush would be in the dock himself.
When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, many in Washington, particularly Republicans came to believe that immunity from lawbreaking was a birthright, and so they have been increasingly brazen in breaking laws.
These people need to spend time in prison. Real ones. Medium security at least.
It goes from $5.85/hr to $6.55/hour.
It’s also about the only thing that has even a modest chance of stimulating the economy, because the people at the bottom of the wage scale will spend it.
It will hit $7.25 next July.
I’ve always been a doubter that speculation is responsible for much of the run up in oil prices, but I wholeheartedly the proposed “Stop Excessive Speculation Act”, which would crack down on speculators by allowing the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) to regulate futures market and, “differentiate between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” hedge trading”.
The reason that I support this is because it is a real sea change. It is a refutation of the myth that completely unsupervised markets self-regulate to the benefit of society.
It is the arbitrage and exotic financial vehicles that have been created in the past nearly three decades of free market fundamentalism, frequently lauded by Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan, which are at the core of our current credit crunch.
The markets have devolved into complex self-serving insider deals that have harmed everyone.
I think that this bill is a baby step, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Congressional Budget Office is suggisting that a rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac is about 50% likely, and could cost $25 billion.
Me, I would put the chance of needing a rescue at over 90%, and multiply by 10, or $¼ trillion for the cost to the tax payers, just based on my gut.
As to secondary costs rippling through the economy? I’m not even going to try to guess at that.
They are asking for the Security Council to delay any investigation for 12 months.
The official reason is because they believe that an indictment would “harm peace efforts”, but I think that it’s because there are other regimes out there, and I’m not limiting myself to Mugabe, who would be subject to possible prosecution from the International Criminal Court.
It appears that the Darfur rebels understand this too:
Djibril Bassole, the joint U.N.-AU Darfur mediator made his first visit to Sudan on Sunday to try to revive a stalled peace process. But Khalil Ibrahim, head of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said his rebel group would no longer recognise AU efforts to mediate a peace process.
“The African Union is a biased organisation and is protecting dictators and neglecting the African people,” Ibrahim, head of JEM, the most militarily powerful rebel group, told Reuters from Darfur.
Sherif Harir, a senior member of the Sudan Liberation Army Unity faction, also told Reuters that for any AU mediation to succeed, it would have to answer why it had taken such a stance.
“The AU by so doing has indicated to the people of Darfur that they can die and it’s not as important as protecting a president who has taken power by military coup,” he said.
Of course, it’s not like the African Union had much credibility left anyway.
Charles Plosser, President of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, called for rate hikes to forestall inflation. Not surprisingly, the US dollar has risen as a result.
Meanwhile, the banking meltdown continues aplace, with Wachovia losing $9.9 billion dollars and exiting the wholesale mortgage business, meaning that they will no longer offer mortgages through independent brokers, and WaMu Lost $3.3 billion too.
I would also note that federal examiners auditing the GSE’s books, though this is more a preparation for a US government bailout than it is any concern for wrongdoing.
Considering that U.S. home prices 4.8% from May 2007 to May 2008, I’d count a GSE bailout as likely.
Seeing as how tropical storm Dolly largely missed the offshore oil rigs, it’s not surprising that oil prices have fallen, and it appears that retail gasoline is doing the same.
Still, this is mostly a symptom of a slumping economy, where less oil is needed, much as UPS’s profit slump of 21% is clear evidence of a radically slowing economy.
It’s also old home week at 40 Years in the Desert, because we have some news about another monoliner insurer in trouble, this time, it’s Assured Guaranty, one of the two insurers left with AAA ratings from all three major agencies, that is taking a tumble, because Moody’s is making noises about a downgrade.
The thing that is depressing though is what looks likely to be admitted in the trial, including statements made under the influence of, “sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and sexual humiliation”, because these actions could be seen as, “rationally related to good order and discipline.”
Maybe, if the warders in the prison were members of Stalin’s NKVD. Otherwise, this has nothing to do with “good order and discipline”.
But this is the sort of right wing gossip that he’s tied into, and he is reporting that McCain will choose his VP running mate this week.
Normally, this is kept close to the chest until the convention, and if this is not just a tease to the press, it is a mark of McCain’s desperation.
If you look at the list of where the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is making media buys, you learn where they think that they will be competitive, “more than $15 million in buys in North Carolina, New Mexico, Minnesota and Maine, with the buys in Maine and North Carolina exceeding $5 million each.”
They are going hard after Collins in Maine, and Dole in North Carolina, though Dole seems far more secure. Minnesota is definitely in play, and Tom Udall seems comfortably ahead in New Mexico.
Yep, he’s now saying that it’s possible that US combat troops could be out of Iraq in two years.
Flip-flop.
SecDef Robert Gates is said that increasing militarization of foreign policy is something that he has to push back against at a speech a week ago at U.S. Global Leadership Council.
I think that this is an explicit refutation of Rumsfeld, and his attempts to make the Pentagon the decision authority on all levels, particularly in Iraq, where the State Department and other civilian agencies were explicitly cut out of any decision making, or even consultation.
I believe that Gates is right, but I do not believe that he will get much traction on this in this administration, particularly given the given the trajectory of U.S. Africa command (Africom):
Africom is slated to begin operations in September. It marks the Pentagon’s first centralized operation for Africa, like the Defense Dept. now has, for example, Eucom for Europe or Centcom for the Middle East. The Pentagon, though, has envisioned using Africom as more than a military command. It is designed to help build U.S. soft power in Africa, through what it calls “active security” missions — like building schools and digging wells.
(Matt Mahurin) To many African political leaders, this sounds a lot like an imperialist enterprise. They say Africom’s “active security” will result in the construction of military bases across the continent in order to interfere with sovereign political systems — and access the region’s oil reserves. Currently, the Pentagon has only one African base, at Dijbouti in the perpetually unstable, resource-poor Horn of Africa.
Which appears to be moving in exactly the opposite direction.
In the next round of the WTO talks, the EU is offering to cut farm tariffs by 60%, which I count as either an empty gesture, or funny numbers. Farmers have too much power in EU nations, particularly France, for this to happen.
In related news, negotiators are targeting US farm support, though again, I doubt any meaningful movement will be made.
Pity the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague doesn’t have the death penalty
Bosnia’s Serb wartime president, Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, has been arrested, Serbian President Boris Tadic’s office said on Monday.
Amazing how soon it happened after the EU gave the Serbs a reason to catch him. You see, the, “EU has made delivering indicted war criminals to the Hague a precondition for Serbia’s membership.”
Noted aviation reporter Stephen Trimble showed what his favorite swag at Farnborough was:
From Boeing, St. Louis, the home of the C-17 transport
Of course, being a reporter, he corrupts everything he touches:
And it got worse:
Word is now that the moose is under consideration for an editing position at a major aviation publication.
I got a DVD boxed set of Sapphire and Steel from you, and (this is embarrassing), I’m not sure who you are.
The name sounds familiar, but in a search of my email and addy book, nothing comes up, and I’m wondering if I know him through a nym, or if he confused me with a brother.
{on edit}
He’s a DVD vendor, and my bro’ sent this to me, it’s just that there his name wasn’t ion the package….please ignore.
According to Rasmussen Reports™, Democrat Mark Begich is ahead of Ted Stevens 50% to 41%, and he is ahead 52%to 44% when “leaners” are counted.
Buh bye uncle Ted.
The last time Alaska sent a Dem to Congress was 1974.
